Circle's Arc, the stablecoin-focused blockchain launched less than three weeks ago, is still sitting on more than half a billion dollars in stablecoins. But the network has become much quieter since its debut.
- Arc processed roughly 7.8 million transactions around its Sept. 16 mainnet launch.
- But by Oct. 5, daily activity had fallen to about 2.5 million transactions, down roughly 70%, The Coinformer found after reviewing the network's explorer.
Number of new transactions on Arc's mainnet. Source: explorer.arc.io
Arc recorded roughly $411 million in decentralized exchange volume on its first day.
By Oct. 5, daily DEX volume had fallen to roughly $69 million, a drop of about 83%, according to data reviewed by The Coinformer.
Uniswap, the largest decentralized exchange on Arc by volume, accounted for about $67.5 million of roughly $68.7 million in the latest 24-hour DEX trading.
- Aerodrome, another crypto exchange deployed on the network, handled less than $1 million, while most other tracked venues were below $500,000.
Aggregator activity, another measure of how much trading is being routed across different exchanges, also cooled as Arc recorded roughly $1 million in DEX aggregator volume over 24 hours, while weekly volume was down almost 48%, the data shows.
Perpetual trading showed an even sharper slowdown. Arc saw about $5.6 million in perps volume over seven days, down nearly 50% week over week.
Arc revenue moved in the same direction
Protocols on Arc generated roughly $6,200 over the latest 24 hours, while tracked app revenue fell about 54% over the week. Over the past 30 days, the network generated just about $1 million in app revenue.
- More than half of that revenue, surprisingly, came from Argus World, a token launchpad that generated about $523,000 despite having little to do with the payments and institutional finance use cases Circle, the company behind USDC, has mostly emphasized for Arc.
- Argus, one of the most active consumer-facing apps on Arc, also generated roughly $4.7 million in fees over the past month despite holding only around $1.2 million in total value locked (TVL).
The capital picture looks very different
Arc still held roughly $512 million in stablecoins when The Coinformer checked the data, up almost 12% over seven days. USDC, Circle's dollar-backed stablecoin and Arc's native gas asset, accounted for nearly 99% of that total.
As for the network's DeFi side, its TVL stood at roughly $547 million, with Morpho, a decentralized lending protocol, accounting for more than $320 million of that amount.
- Aave, another large lending market, held roughly $183 million.
- Together, the two protocols represented most of Arc's tracked DeFi liquidity.
Net flows also suggested that capital wasn't leaving at anything close to the pace seen in trading activity. Arc recorded about $1.7 million in net outflows over the latest 24 hours, a relatively small amount compared with the more than $500 million still sitting on the network.
- Circle, one of crypto's largest stablecoin issuers, launched Arc's mainnet network on Sept. 16 with more than 100 apps and more than 100 institutional and ecosystem participants.
- Its validator group includes BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, alongside DTCC, ICE, Mastercard, Standard Chartered and Visa.
- But its first day activity looked way different as around 82% of Arc's $410.8 million in launch day DEX volume was tied to memecoin launchpads, according to on-chain data published at the time.
- Argus alone, one of those launchpads, was responsible for roughly half of the network's trading activity.
- The Coinformer reached out to Circle and will update the story if the company responds.